Heavy boots and communication

I’ve had my day made by the strangest of articles, Heavy Boots. I’m positively happy and have had my world view restored again. Before you tell me I have a skewed world view, you may be right. I subscribe to the belief that people are people are people and people are people everywhere.

Ok, back to this little gem. For those not willing to read the article: it outlines a question posed in a class, “If a pen is dropped will it fall to the moon or float away?”. The answer is fall, but more slowly. What the writer discovered was that people are quite willing to belief that astronauts stayed on the moon b X communicatioecause they wore heavy boots and that the pen would float away. The article is worth the read, if only for the amusement factor.

It does raise a real conundrum for educators though. We all interpret the world through our own filters and lenses that we build up through our experiences in life. The idea that heavy boots were responsible for our astronauts not floating away did not phase the philosophy class one iota. In the words of the miscellaneous author, “It was not part of their world view.” They could not understand why the world did not work this way even though at some point they would have learned the basics of gravity. It simply did not figure in their world. This strange happenstance is not unique, but affects every single discussion we join.

The idea is not a new one. A great saying is, “People do not hear what you say. They hear what they think you said!” It is rule one in Communication 101. People filter what you say through their experiences and understanding. For instance it is no good telling a colour-blind man that the sky is blue, if he sees purple. He will not understand your point of view because it does not work within his own world view.

Sometimes the difference in world views between the speaker and receiver is great enough that meaningful dialog is impossible. However if we seek to understand the position of person to whom we are communicating with we can adjust to find the point we can shift their views just that little bit. So how do we get there?

Seek first to understand

“People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.”

There are millions of experts and gurus in the world. Half of them live on Twitter. If you don’t believe me, check for yourself Some have great knowledge, some know the esoteric ways of the DVD Recorder and some make it up as they go along. The ones successful at getting you to listen (not necessarily the ones who know what they are talking about) are the ones who seem to understand where you are coming from. They make some connection with you and seem to be speaking to your need.

We as educators don’t need to be flim-flam men and women to reach this same connection with our students. The easiest way to reach the connection is to listen to what our students are telling us. It has nothing to do with what we say and everything to do with how we hear. It is a little thing called empathy and can do wonders on kicking down the pedestals on which we sometimes stand. I include myself on this list.

Our students have their own experiences and hassles, dramas, prejudices and emotions that they are working through, dealing with and filtering through. If we don’t have some idea of where they are standing, we have know way of knowing how to take them to where they need to be.

Walk a mile in these heavy boots

Once we have an idea of where they stand, we need to connect to them in a way that they can accept. Talking aerodynamics to a soccer player is potentially unhelpful and probably useless. Yes aerodynamics affect the ball in amazing ways, but talking about the Bernoille principle won’t help him put the ball in the net. Describing how the air moves around the ball when he kicks it and show him slow motion videos of the rotation and how spin affects the ball might.

People generally know when you are talking down to them or at them. The easiest way to achieve this is by over complicating things or oversimplifying.   Match your message to the marketplace and the market may listen.

Know thy stuff and make sense

Most people have some form of garbage meter in their brains. They will know when you are making it up as you go along.

We’ve all seen lecturers and teachers derailed by an errant comment. It can be really funny watch, but a nightmare to live. It also kills your credibility and makes it really hard to get back to the world view moving.

The easiest way to avoid it is: if you don’t know it, don’t say it. Get back them later after you check it out. Know what you are talking about and prepare. Structure things in a way that can be received by your audience.

Avoiding confusing explanations can also help. A rule of thumb I use is, “If I can’t finish a sentence without a breath. I’ve probably confused the heck out of my listener.” Take a breath, slow down and work through the explanation logically and be ready to expand on a point and break it down further if your listener doesn’t understand.

Listen again

Never stop listening. People will often tell you if they don’t get it. Ask questions and obtain feedback from your students. They will let you know. If their answers are garbled or don’t make sense, you probably have a clash of the world views happening and it’s time to take a different tack.

Reflective listening can be a great way to get the learner moving towards the right idea. Listen to what the student says and reflect back what they say to them either verbatim or paraphrased whilst giving them full attention. Ask questions to get them to expand on what they are thinking. You can then affirm where they have it right and either talk to the logic gap or have them fill the logic gap themselves by asking further questions.

By moving away from your world and into theirs you make a connection. The connection you make helps them move forward and may even move you further along on your learning journey. Don’t be afraid to use your ears as they can be your greatest tool.

Let me know what you think. How do you overcome the Heavy Boots syndrome with your students? How do you go about understanding your learners’ world views? Leave me a comment here or Tweet me @BradStokes. I’d love to hear what you think.

Little moments = Big life

I and others in the tech community shared a small smile as we marked 1234567890 Day this Valentines day. For the non-geek 1234567890 was a Unix timestamp. Simply put the number of seconds elapsed since midnight Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds, passed 1234567890 seconds last Saturday. To some this moment was a very good reason to hold a party, to others something unknown or not worth worrying about and to others still, myself included, just a reason to smile for a moment during the day. It was one of those milestones that are here for, in this case, literally a second and gone again. A point to mark time. It was a little moment. The thing we can get wrong is that even if something is a little moment, it doesn’t necessarily mean a non-significant moment. The big moments that we define our lives by are hard to miss. A graduation, a birth of a child, a wedding, the death of a loved one, a car accident or  the loss of a significant relationship are all great contenders for the title. They are moments that can significantly alter the course that we are running. The big moments are often associated with times of great emotion, good or bad, or stress and anxiety and we can call them to mind without hesitation.  Because they are so vivid and strong in our memories we attribute all sorts of decissions and actions to them. We forget about all the little steps that can bring us to that point. I’d say a better indicator of how we define ourselves is the sum the little moments you have. The moments of quiet reflection or the small times that are shared with others; The hug of a child that melts your heart; The shared commiseration at the loss of your home sporting team; Or the quiet satisfaction of a job well done when you complete a difficult task. We may have only a few watershed events in our lives, but the small course alterations happen all the time. And whilst the big stuff tends not to be forgotten and the keepsakes most times easy to find, the small stuff gets lost along the way. The question is: “How to we capture these little moments?” The answers of a generation ago was keep a diary, scrapbook, write a letter to a friend or keep a stack of a couple of thousand photos somewhere in a drawer. Some of the most usefull insights to a bygone era are from these simple tools, kept by normal everyday people. And yet in the rush of our lives, which seem to have become so full, we struggle to find the time and the discipline to maintain our own journals of this life. Diaries are lost or unused, and photos become lost on computer hard drives and CDs floating around home. Even an errant computer virus can destroy our keepsakes forever. The recent explosion of social networking phenomona has suddenly provided us with a whole new suite of ways to record the little moments. Arguably one of the reasons these sites are so popular is they enable us to share the little moments and thoughts of our lives with each other. Funny as it seems, I don’t mind knowing that a friend is “thinking it is too hot to sit in a classroom”, because I can identify moments I’ve thought the same. At the same time I can share photos of my children playing with a friend who I’ve not seen in person for years. My little moment is captured, shared and my world is enriched for the connection. Better still, my little moment awaits me every time I want to visit it again. The choices of how I capture these moments are seemingly endless. I can post updates of what’s happening to me right now in microblogs or tweets through FaceBook, MySpace or Twitter. I can diarise or blog my deeper thoughts through Blogger, BlogNow or iBlog. I can store and share my photos on Flickr or Picasa. I can host my videos on YouTube or Blip.tv. I can even aggregate them all and store copies of all my certificates and important documents through an ePortfolio solution like ShowMeNow.  I can make every bit of my life an event that is recorded and available to the world. Though that’s not to say I should. Ultimately, each of us needs to decide how we share, how much we share and what is appropriate. For instance I’d say recording a fight I had with my partner on an open forum or blog is not something I want the world to see. On an online diary that is mine and mine alone, I might. We need to be aware of what we are giving away and of the privacy settings available through the tools we use and how to use them.  Having said that, capturing my little moments and sharing them with others increases my world and enriches my journey through it. And whilst I’ve looked at the bigger picture, I can’t but help be aware that my lifelong learning journey is also made up of the smaller moments. The things I learn, can revolutionise my worldview or enhance my skills and thoughts just a little bit. Capturing the little things, can be so important when I’m trying to demonstrate my ability to preform a certain task or do a particular job. The things I capture along the way can becomes my peronal learning journey and how I capture them my personal learning environment.  It is unique to me. It will grow with me and change and develop as I do.  The tools I use, will be the ones that work for me. Likewise, your learning journey and how you capture it is for you to decide. What tools will you use to comprise your own personal learning environment? What will you record along the way? What should you record on the way through? How do you intend to grab it? Let us know what your learning world looks like.

Perpetuus Calx – Resolutions that Last

The new year has started and provides us with the opportunity to think about where we are, where we want to go and how we go about getting there. In short, we have thought, and in many cases made, our New Year’s resolutions.

 The idea of the New Year’s resolutions has unfortunately been tarnished by time and personal experiences. A number of notable newspaper columnists go so far as to suggest that because so many resolutions get broken, you shouldn’t bother making them in the first place. And while it is true that at least 80% of the resolutions this year are already consigned to the trash can of life, I think the idea misses the point. It is about the resolutions that last the distance and make the difference sought in the first place.  The thing most people don’t think about is that other word for resolution is GOAL.

Anyone that has read any self-help book or business building manual in the last 20 years, or for that matter have decided to watch Dr Phil, know about the goals (or resolutions) that don’t work. They are the goals that are vague, unmeasurable or simple unattainable. They are generally a good intention with no possible follow-through such as “I will be more attentive in class”, “I will make my business grow” or even “I will lose weight this year”. They are great ideas with no direction and with no way to know when you get there.

Likewise we have all heard about the goals that work, the SMART goals (or one of half a dozen other variants). Simply put the goals that work are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timetabled. You should know what you want to achieve and when you will know you have made it. Your goals should be relevant to your current situation and be able to be reached. You should have a stated time to reach your goal.  So whilst “I will grow my business” might not be so great, “I will increase revenue by 10% by June by targeting product line x or service y” fits the bill. Writing down the goal and coming back to it several times before your target date can also help and make it one of the goals or resolutions that last.

In the end, the New Year’s resolution is about finding the time and space to reflect on the journey thus far, look about where you are right now and start on the path to where you want to be.  There is no perfect time for setting goals and planning, but you are served much better by the goals you have than the ones you don’t. As the adage goes, “He who aims at nothing is sure to hit it”. There are times that seem to lend themselves to reflection and goal setting and planning. New Year is one of them. A New Year’s resolution is a good way to start the year with a plan that can make the difference.

So in this stream of thinking, what are Mtraining’s New Year’s resolutions? Well, we’ll play that a little close to the chest. Some of the ones that I’m throwing into the ring and that excite me are:

• Find at least 5 emerging or new technologies and pilot their usage with students by years end
• Create a bank of over 100 new Point Of View training resources (videos) by June 
• and personally, I’d like to help at least a few hundred excellent trainers reach their learners more effectively through innovative use of technology this year

2009 contains some awesome and really exciting possibilities. Our New Year’s resolutions are aimed at making them become real. 

What are you aiming for? Post a comment or contact us and let us help you get there.

What one thing would you show the world?

There are so many things we do by instinct. Actions we have learned and refined over years of practice to a point that we do not even think about the actions. They are simply a part of us something ingrained to the muscles and mind. They can be little inconsequential things that seem almost arbitrary at times, but are important to the success of a task. We have a training facility that delivers Transport and Logistics training. One small but important task that students have to practice is how to correctly secure a load. There are a number of different methods of performing this task from “dog and chain” to using a ratchet strap or a simple rope and truckie’s hitch. Each has their own quirks and things to be aware of. It is interesting to watch someone who has preformed any of these tasks for years try to break their flow of action enough to stop and explain each step they are performing. The natural place to stand when doing a tie-down is directly in front of the rope/strap/chain, yet the trainer is forced to skew their body to the side to allow the audience to see what they are doing. Even then the little things like a quick test of tension can look awkward. And a student may still miss the subtle slip of a hand around the loop in the rope and the twist he puts on the end of the action, because his own hands/arms or body is in the way. The challenge is in capturing these moments in such a way that student can then observe the flow of action over at a later time, but not force a trainer to grapple with a new technology that increases their workload or makes the task more difficult to perform. And this is where the world of Point of View (POV) comes into its own. Think instead of this scenario: The trainer puts on a set of glasses and hits record. They don’t have to worry about lights, body position, if their hair is out of position or if their skin is all shiny; no make up, no extra people needed, just the two hands they were born with. The trainer walks up to the flat bed and starts speaking about how they are going to do the tie-down and why they might select this particular method of action. The trainer quickly ties a clove hitch and explains as they perform the task each step along the way. The trainer doesn’t have to worry about twisting his body about to allow people to see what they are doing, all they have to remember is, “What I see, so does everybody else.” They walk around the other side of the truck and demonstrate a truckie’s hitch and how to tie off the rope. The trainer tests the tension with their hands and can show the give or lack there of in the rope. Then with the words, “That’s all folks”, the trainer presses stop and walks away. The video resource has now been created and is ready to download to the computer for dissemination on the web, and will soon available for all their students to view whenever they might need. The total time spent by the trainer is less than 10 minutes for a 2 minute video that will be used hundreds or thousands of times. This is just one example of some of the gems we will be recording. We have hundreds of these little moments waiting to be captured. POV offers us the opportunity to simply and easily seize these treasures of learning. Over the coming months, Mtraining will be releasing a whole range of short POV videos covering skills relating to the warehouse and road transport environment. I’m personally excited and enthused over what we plan to achieve. Just think about the things you do everyday with your hands. What skills would you record and pass on to others? Where would you start, and what would you show? The possibilities really are exciting…